author:fcfromssc a massive, distributed search for the best way to hurt the outgroup as badly as
edit: well, OP changed substantially after I hit post.
Sorry, it's a bad habit. This still seems like a really good reply, though, and I'll try to get a substantive response.
One note, real quick. The quote is:
The last several years are best modelled as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble.
It's like "A Tribe Called Quest", you have to say the whole thing. I try to keep the phrasing as consistent as possible, I've been using it for years now because I think it's a really important insight.
Because it's boring and cheap.
Calling for it is definitely boring and cheap. An actual collapse of civil order would be a lot of things, but "boring" and "cheap" are not among them. If you think that our current order would obviously have survived Trump catching the Butler bullet with his brainstem, you are much more of an optimist than I. I believe that a lot of Americans were genuinely disappointed that the bullets only killed and wounded his supporters and not Trump himself. Would you disagree?
The taboo on organized political violence has been steadily degrading for at least the last decade. We've had multiple presidential and federal assassination attempts within the last few years, numerous politically-motivated shootings, and at least one politically-motivated spree-killing of children. This would be catastrophic if the capacity for organized violence were a constant in the equation, and only the willingness were increasing. And in fact, the commenter above fervently believes this, as do most people, and so is actively working to maximize the willingness variable. And on the flipside, most people discounting the possibility of a serious collapse are likewise assuming capacity as a constant and reasoning from there.
He and all others who share this perspective are deceived. Not only is capacity a variable, it is a variable freighted by a massive overhang of untapped potential energy. The last several years are best modelled as a massive, distributed search for the best ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble. The further the culture war escalates, the more motivated the search. If nothing changes, that search is very likely to, within the next few years, return results that are unsurvivable for our present society.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
8mo ago
Or just that it's awfully unnerving how easily it would be for non idiots to get away with random acts of murder?
That's the one.
The current era is best understood as a massive, distributed search for ways to hurt the outgroup as badly as possible without getting in too much trouble.
Here, we are seeing that there is a significant gap between the perception and the reality of "getting in too much trouble." Awareness of the gap invites arbitrage.
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